The uniformed cop beside her chuckled and shook his head. Like Dallas, he’d heard every excuse in the book. This one wasn’t even particularly creative.
The woman shot the cop an annoyed glare before turning her attention back to Dallas. She squared her shoulders. “I’m innocent. And I’m Allison Kempler’s roommate. If you won’t help me, perhaps you’d be good enough to let Greg know I’m here.”
At the mention of Allison’s name, Dallas groaned inwardly. Leaving the woman here to be booked and locked up suddenly ceased to be an option. Greg was batty about his new fiancée. If Dallas upset Allison, there’d be hell to pay.
“Greg Smith,” she elaborated. “Allison’s fiancé.”
“Name and address,” said the sergeant.
“Son of a bitch,” Dallas muttered under his breath, stuffing the envelope under his arm and taking two steps back to the counter. “What’ve you got on her?” he asked the arresting officer.
“I’m not paying you twenty-four-hundred dollars,” she said.
“We’ll talk about the bill later,” he said.
“Oh, no, we won’t. Do I look stupid?”
“No.” Crazy, maybe. But definitely not stupid.
“You may think you’ve got me right where you want—”
“Shut up.”
“Excuse me?”
Dallas turned and subjected her to a long, steady stare. It was unseemly to argue about fees in front of the police department. And, quite frankly, right where he wanted her wasn’t in the Haines Street lockup.
It was…
He pulled his thoughts up short, clamping his jaw. Where the hell had that come from?
“We’ll come to a mutually agreeable fee once I get you out of those cuffs,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. She nodded, but he could see it cost her a lot to keep her latest opinion to herself.
The arresting officer flipped open his black notebook. “We have three-hundred pirated copies of Midnight Run, two dozen Uzis, ten AK-47s and a bazooka. And we’ve got another warrant for the garage across the alley.”
Shelby sucked in a quick breath. “I didn’t—”
“As your attorney, I’ve advised you to keep your mouth shut.”
Her eyes emitted some more sapphire sparks.
This time Dallas felt them all the way to his toes.
Perfect. Sexual awareness. Perhaps one of the officers would be good enough to shoot him now.
“Name?” the desk sergeant repeated.
Shelby mutinously kept her mouth shut.
“You can answer that,” said Dallas with a sigh.
“Why, thank you. Shelby Jacobs. I didn’t know about any of the guns. I’ve only been at Game-O-Rama for a week. Ask Allison—”
“Just your name,” said Dallas.
She clamped her jaw shut again and muttered something between her clenched teeth. He was pretty sure it concerned his parentage.
Like he was the problem here.
“Anything connecting Ms. Jacobs directly to the evidence?” he asked.
“We have videotape of her making a pickup.” The cop paused significantly. “She claims she thought it was coffee.”
“I—”
Dallas rapped Shelby’s ankle with the side of his foot. To his shock, she actually did shut up this time.
“Did you see her make a payment?” he asked.
The cop shook his head. “No.”
“Did she handle the merchandise?”
“No.”
“You have her fingerprints on the guns, the warehouse, the crates?”
“Not so far. Forensics is still working.”
The desk sergeant leaned forward and pointed to the sign dangling above his head. “This is booking, not a courtroom. And I’m a sergeant, not a judge. Any chance we can we get her processed before a lineup forms?”
“Is she formally under arrest?” asked Dallas.
“Of course—”
“Think hard.” Dallas stared at the arresting officer. “Did you arrest her? Or just bring her in for questioning? Do you have a warrant? Did you follow due process to the letter?”
The officer’s gaze slid to the sergeant. “Sarge?”
Dallas stared at the sergeant with a you-don’t-want-to-mess-with-a-high-priced-attorney-this-close-to-quitting-time expression on his face.
“Kick her loose,” said the sergeant.
“What about me?” the man beside her sputtered. “If her arrest was bogus, then mine—”
“You wanna share a cell with Buba Junuh?” asked the sergeant, waving his pencil in the direction of the man’s nose. “You just keep talking.”
The man swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing once as he suddenly became fascinated by the scarred, wood countertop.
“Make sure your client doesn’t leave town,” the sergeant warned Dallas.
“No problem,” Dallas quickly replied.
As soon as Shelby’s cuffs were off, he hustled her toward the door. He was getting out while the getting was good. He wasn’t about to give the officers time to reconsider and end up stuck in a dingy interview room for the next four hours.
He had things to do, places to go.
“Thanks.” Shelby gasped, struggling to keep up with his long strides.
They burst through the door into a spring evening and some comparatively fresh air. Dallas breathed a sigh of relief.
Finally. His duty was done. Another couple of hours at the office and he could grab dinner at Sebastian’s on the way home and let life get back to normal.
The damp pavement glowed under the streetlights as the commuter crowd spilled from the El Station onto the street. A couple of middle-aged men in business suits gave Shelby speculative looks.
Dallas tossed them a don’t-even-think-about-it glare. “You got cab fare home?” he asked her.
She rubbed her arms against the growing chill. “Of course I’ve got…oh, no…” She stopped short. “My purse!”
Dallas stared down another passerby. This one looked like a construction worker, with a navy work shirt and a black lunchbox. Didn’t this woman know not to wander the streets of Chicago in a miniskirt?
“I left my purse at the Game-O-Rama,” said Shelby.
“So, have the taxi stop and get it.”
“They locked it up. I don’t have a key. Gerry has the key.”
Dallas tipped his head back, stared at the streetlamp and swallowed a few cusswords. Why him?
His dad might have taken on every stray south of Jackson Park with a decent sob story, but Dallas definitely wasn’t his father. He’d never be that naive.
With no other choice, he shrugged out of his suit jacket and dropped it around Shelby’s shoulders. “Don’t talk to anyone until I get back.”
She nodded, glancing around the damp, darkening street.
The male